definition

what the heck am i? where do i fit in? do i have a category?
i don't believe there is a god. if there is he is an awful awful being. of course i guess i could be wrong. i used to be very religious but now i am not. i used to go to church every day for like 10 years by myself b/c my family is pretty religiously diverse. but i feel like i wasted all of that time worshipping something fake and selfish. i dont believe there is a devil or an afterlife but again....i could be wring. i belive in fate. we follow the path set out for us and make whatever choices we're set up to make. there are no regret and is no point in asking "what if". oh and im 16 but this isnt one of those "phases" im very mature for my age. i've heard it a thousand times.
please help me. :)
my email is [email protected] if you feel that would be a more efficient way of communication.
looking forward to hearing back from you,
Kristen

Atheist Answer:

I always prefer to communicate through the site, where others might enjoy the discussion.

Like me, you're an agnostic atheist. Admitting you don't know and could be wrong makes you agnostic. Regardless, your lack of belief in gods or the equivalent makes you an atheist.

Believing our future and our choices are set is called determinism. I don't believe in free will either (sure, we can do what we want to, but we can't want what we want to) but I stop short of being a determinist like you.

That's because there appears to be a random element in the universe. It's what quantum mechanics were formulated to explain. It rarely affects any event we might actually observe, but it seems that on an atomic level the position and velocity of any particle is often not even determined, let alone predetermined. There's no way to control this phenomenon so it's no friendlier to free will than determinism is, but it does suggest that the future path of the universe is only secure on the surface, and only most of the time.

Don't feel you have to categorise yourself at all if you don't want to, but purely by definitions, you're an agnostic atheist and a determinist. I'm with you on two out of three.

The way that I had always heard the term atheist used is someone who believes that God does not exist. It would seem that many people would define this as a strong atheist. (An agnostic strong atheist would then be someone who still has a belief that God doesn't exist, but is open to the possibility that he is wrong.) A person who is genuinely undecided, and is unwilling to commit to one belief or the other, would then be a weak atheist. (The qualifier agnostic would be redundant for a weak atheist.) If this is not how the terms are used, then someone can correct me. The term weak atheist is what most people would probably refere to as an agnostic(noun). My question is, if the common usage of the terms is already as I have described, then why insist on this pedantic, all-inclsive definition of atheist, which envelopes everyone by default who isn't a theist? It seems logical that, if the belief in God's existence has a title to itself, then the belief in His nonexistence deserves one as well. Perhaps those of us who are genuinely unsure, and do not consider ourselves closer to either position, would rather not be lumped in with one category over the other. That seems about as fair as labeling everyone either pro-life or pro-choioce, and then saying "If you haven't made up your mind, we're going to call you pro-choice." It would seem that a lot of confusion could be saved by using the more logical definitions. Before you wave the Oxford dictionary at me, keep in mind that dictionaries aren't final authorities. The meaning of words change, which is why dictionaries are always being rewritten, and perhaps sometimes there's a reason why they change.

Atheist Answer:

"Weak atheist" is someone who is of the opinion or has reached the conclusion that there are no gods. It's not a positive belief.

"Strong atheist" is someone who believes that there is no god or equivalent. There are few of these.

I think the modern atheist position is not "There is no god" or even "There is no EVIDENCE for any god". It's "There is no AVAILABLE evidence for any god, and based on this (and other factors) I disregard the small probability that one exists." We acknowledge that we can't prove non-existence, but we assume it anyway.